DIYbanter - View Single Post - OT - Senate Republicans vote to kill Obama's jobs bill..Why DoRepublicans Hate America?

Hawke[_3_]

On 10/30/2011 7:07 PM, wrote:
On Oct 30, 7:01 pm, wrote:

I did. From what I learned there I can tell you that a newsgroup about a
trade like metalworking will probably have mainly tradesmen in it.

Bad assumption. RCM is not about a trade like metalworking. Note the
R. That stands for recreational.
In other words it is a group about recreational metalworking. Which
tends to say the people who frequent it do metalworking for fun not as
a trade. In other words it is not a newsgroup about a trade. It is a
newsgroup for people that enjoy metalworking.

I would point out that the M in RCM stands for metalworking, and that is
a trade. While this is a recreational group that doesn't mean there are
not metalworking and related trades people here. Quite a few I would
bet. So you can't say definitively that my assumption of the percentage
of college graduates in the group is wrong. If you take any
representation you want; the people here represent the general public,
the people here represent a large proportion of tradespeople, the people
here represent a recreational group, or just about any other you want to
use the statistics still support the idea that by a wide margin that
most people in this group are not people with college degrees.

If it
was an engineering group I'd expect most people would have college
degrees. Assuming most people here are metal working related workers I
think it's a fair assumption that most people in this group don't have
degrees. 75% of the public has no college degree. If we are
representative of that population then most people here don't have a
degree. If we are representative of metalworkers in general then you
would expect that population to be less well educated than the general
public.

Ah but we are not representative of metalworkers in general. We are a
bunch of people who have a hobby of metalworking and like to discuss
metalworking. And I do not know where you get the idea that
machinists are less educated that the general public.

Personal experience for one and the fact that machinists are
tradespeople and they are not as highly educated as the general public
is. I spent many years going to college and that goes back to the 1970s.
I never ran into anyone there who was a machinist. If you were a
professional machinist what college degree would you pursue? I mean if
you had a profession why would you be in college unless you wanted out
of it and into something else?

It really does not bother me that you express opinions, whatever they
are. I do try to point out to you where you make logical errors.
Such as the one above on statistics.

To make a charge that I've made a statistical error you have to prove
it. But you don't have a clue how many people here have college degrees.
You just made a guess. OTOH, I estimated based on education level
statistics how many people here should have a college education. If you
think I am wrong then I say show me that more than 50% of the people
here have a degree in something.

The error you made was assuming that the folks that post in RCM are
representative of the general public. But they are not. Just the
fact that they post in a newsgroup means they are different from the
general public.

I would question your assumptions here. First off, I don't see why
people in RCM are not representative of the general public. If so, in
what way, and where is your proof? Second, in what way are people that
post to a newsgroup different from the public? How do you know that?

I do not have to prove how many people here have college degrees to
know you made an error, You made an error you in your initial
assumption. That is the statistical error you made.

To prove me wrong all you have to do is prove that more than 25% of the
people in RCM have college degrees. You don't know my assumption is
wrong. You have no proof that it's wrong. You think it is but you don't
have any proof. So you can't say truthfully that my assumption is wrong
unless you can prove it first. But you don't have any way to do that.

I guess that explains it. You aren't editing things here though. You are
having a casual conversation that is on another level. It's informal.
Anything goes.

Anything goes. I guess that includes bad logic, false statements,
lies, etc. That may apply to you, but I try to be rational even in
informal conversations.

Yep, all of that. But, like you, I don't apply those things to myself
either. That doesn't mean most people here don't lie, make false
statements, or use faulty logic. I doubt any of them will admit to it
either.

Hawke